Shifting lights
by Inkfire
Summary: "Look! It's beautiful!" Lily cried, as the world was falling down on them. And just like that, they didn't belong to the same world anymore. A response to the First Magic challenge on the Dark Lord's Most Faithful forum, and to a Hogwarts Online prompt.


**Here's another response to the meira16's First Magic challenge on The Dark Lord's Most Faithful Forum, and to December 9th Prompt of the Day on Hogwarts Online: "Illusions". **

_**First Magic**_

_**The idea is to write about the first display of accidental magic young wizards or witches have. Funny one, angsty ones, foreshadowing of future talents or events, parents' reactions, embarrassing incidents among Muggle-borns - go wild.**_

_**The challenge is for "classical" magic - no Veela or Metamorphagi or anything like that.**_

_**Entries must be at least 300 words and less than 2,000 words. As usual, challenge is open for 2 weeks.**_

* * *

"It's so pretty," Petunia whispered, wide-eyed, something nearly akin to fear making her voice shake as she took the universe in. Dark velvet, it stretched above her, all around her, beyond sight and imagination. Her heart hammered in her chest as her gaze slid from star to star, trying to count, to decipher patterns. "Oh! Look, Lily!"

A shooting star was falling just for them, lazily slipping through the sky, white and glinting. "Make a wish, make a wish!" she cried, seizing her sister's arm, excitement bubbling in her stomach. Her head shot back up, her eyes anxiously scanning the sky for their star again, and she thought hard for something she wanted.

_Let me always have a lovely life. A lovely family, a lovely home – surely that's all it takes to reach true happiness_.

"I made a wish," Lily whispered, giggling.

"Don't tell me, don't tell me!"

"Look!" she exclaimed, pointing.

Petunia looked, and saw another star, falling as well. Her breathing caught and her heart quickened again: she hadn't been aware that this was even possible. Maybe her wish had been too big and it took another star to also fulfill Lily's, she fleetingly thought. Turning her head, she smiled at her sister. Lily's hair was spread on the grass like a halo of fire, the stars reflecting in her widened emerald eyes. Her white skin looked almost translucent, and yet she seemed to emit the oddest _warmth_...

"No!" she hissed, "not at me, Tuney! Look at them! Look at them!"

Petunia glanced up and thought that she was mistaken, or mad. That was the same star, it had to be – but then she looked higher still, and the breath was knocked out of her lungs. Three – four – five – six – _seven – ten – more_ – they were falling. The stars were all falling, the sky crashing down on them. They shone hard, a deadly glow, perhaps – they were racing towards them, about to collide –

"What's going on?" she screamed, gripping Lily's arm. She cowered in fear, convinced of dying. "Oh no, oh no, please no!"

"What?" Lily gasped. "But _look!_ Don't be scared! It's beautiful!"

The first star touched Petunia's cheek. It was cool, yet warm somehow, very light, and then it died swiftly, twinkling twice before it disappeared. She blinked in shock, her heart in her throat as a second one tangled up in her wispy hair. Illusions...?

It was no illusion. She dared to look up and the sky was falling down on them, a downpour, an overflow of blinding, racing lights, the end of the world – they brushed her skin by dozens, swathing her in an unearthly glow, before they died with a small sound that sounded nearly like a sigh – this couldn't possibly be real. The lights, the stars – there had to be a trick, this was a dream –

There was a peal of laughter from her side. She turned her head, and here lay the prettiest illusion of all. Lily on the grass with the stars caressing her and the velvet night above, Lily laughing, skin flushed and glowing, hands extended. She started up fearing for her sister, and then she feared _her_, without thinking. She let go of her arm, cringed away on instinct – this was Lily, no, it couldn't be, what was _this _– and shouted:

"What's going on? Make it stop!"

"Are you mad?" Lily cried. "It's beautiful!"

That it was. Her sister looked beautiful, a beauty of the crazed, glistening kind, and the world was falling to pieces around them and yet everything was whole and everything was shining, except, maybe, for her. Fear tangled up her lungs and spread from ground to sky, filling and twisting everything, and Petunia was the core and the source of the fear, something wild that should have belonged, that could have belonged, and did not. But this wasn't safe. It wasn't _real. Illusions_, shrieked her cramped, frantic, exhaustedly rational mind, and her body screamed _no_. Something was shifting as lights spiralled down to touch them, and she could see the actual stars now – they were still there, still high above, unreachable, these were only lights, fireflies, tiny bubbles of energy flickering and extinguished in the blink of an eye – and yet the stars had become strangers. The world had become a stranger. It had stopped being steady and safe, forever.

"Make it stop," she moaned, salty tears on her cheeks, and the last light died down, obediently. It was over, and it was still there, it had happened. It was with her forever, the fear, the disbelief. Something had changed, and there was no going back and fixing it.

"Tuney, why were you scared?" her sibling whispered urgently. "Why were you scared of my pretty lights?" Petunia could only look at her for a few seconds, the innocent face of her sister, concerned and anxious. _What did I do wrong?_ probably hadn't crossed her mind yet. There had been no terror to her. Petunia had feared. Petunia had understood that something was going on that wasn't right, that wasn't _natural_. The world was supposed to be a normal place. There were rules. Lily had broken them.

The stars weren't supposed to fall. Little sisters weren't supposed to look so eerily pretty, like they belonged universes away. Little sisters should listen to their eldest.

"Tell me," Lily insisted. Petunia couldn't look at her, or she'd cry again. This didn't make sense.

_It was an illusion,_ she thought. _If I can wish it hard enough, it will have been nothing but an illusion. It can't touch me_.

"Let's go home, Lily," she breathed. "It's getting cold."


End file.
